Horror In Brazil – How The Frak Did This Happen???

…I’ve made it clear before that I don’t like to blog about death. It’s kind of a touchy subject, one I don’t always feel great talking about in my usual jokey way. As such, while I feel the need to talk about this, know that if there is ANY humour found here, it’s meant clearly as an ice breaker, I am NOT attempting to in any way poke fun at any of the people involved in this story. Likewise, this is not going under Tales of Dumbassery. Finally, I must warn that those with weak stomachs or are otherwise uncomfortable with stories of death and tragedy, stop here. This is no turning back beyond this point…Okay…

And I quote…

“One man has been arrested in northern Brazil after a referee who fatally stabbed an amateur player over his refusal to leave the field was stoned to death and decapitated by a mob, police said on Saturday. Referee Octavio da Silva, 20, expelled player Josenir dos Santos Abreu, 30, from a June 30 match in the remote town of Pio XII, named after a former pope. Abreu refused to leave, and the two got into a fist fight. Silva then took out a knife and stabbed Abreu, who died on his way to the hospital. A police statement issued this week says Abreu’s friends and relatives immediately ‘rushed into the field, stoned the referee to death and quartered his body’.”…Okay, so in short, a referee got into a fist fight with a player after ejecting him, then murdered said player, and then was stoned, quartered, and had his head mounted on a pike by the player’s friends and family…I wanna say something SO bad, but it’s a meme and would be in the most horrible taste right now.

Y’know, this is one of those stories where I should be saddened and horrified, and I AM, but probably not as much as I should be, because instead I find myself mostly asking questions. And again, I don’t mean to make light of the fact that two men died. However, I have to ask the following questions, because I’m VERY confused by a number of things in this story, and I would hope that all of these are brought up in the court case that will follow this horrific event.

Why did the referee have a knife? I’ve never played soccer competitively, only for fun and in gym class, so I don’t know if referees are allowed to be armed in any way shape or form, but I would think ‘Absolutely not’. But again, I don’t know, so someone help me out with this. And if the answer is no, then I would kindly like to know why the hell he had one.

Unless one of the fans had a machete, how the hell did they quarter him? Unless they went inch by inch with a smaller blade, and oh dear God, that may just be the most horrible mental image I will ever bring up…If anyone else is feeling ill by this point, I do not blame you in any way, shape, or form.

Where did they get a pike? Unless it was a medium-sized flag of some sort, they shouldn’t have had anything close to a pike anywhere near that field.

And this is the most important one: Why didn’t ANYONE try to put a stop to ANY of this?! Seriously, I’m assuming this wasn’t at an arena with any kind of security or whatnot, because otherwise this doesn’t make any fucking sense at all, but surely to God, someone watching this had to have at least the slightest impulse to stop this insanity!

So yeah, after all of this, I will be shocked if pro soccer games don’t have players/refs/spectators searched and/or have metal detectors used regularly. Given the human being and how insanely paranoid we can be, when something like THIS happens, I just KNOW it’ll happen. And frankly, I’m not so sure it’s unwarranted. Sure, they’ve never gotten to this point before (that I’m aware of), but soccer fights and riots are at least common enough that, especially following this, you’d want to make sure no one was armed going into one.

…I don’t know what else to say about all this, honestly. It’s insane that this could happen. So people, anyone that read this all the way through, please leave your thoughts, feelings, opinions, and whatnot. As usual, though, all I ask is that nobody gets into an argument. You can talk perspectives all you want, but I want NO hostility. I’m not messing around. Ja né.